Pumpkin Cookies

Wishing you all a Happy Thanksgiving and a wonderful day with the ones you love! It's been an amazing year as we were blessed with our little boy Sam and I can't even imagine my life without him. He brings us so much joy, happiness and laughter each day! I can't believe he is already 8 months old! We are so thankful to have him in our lives! I recently made these pumpkin cookies as a "thank you" to Sam's daycare workers. They take such great care of him while we work and I wanted to show them our appreciation with a little fall treat! This time of year you can't go wrong with anything pumpkin as far as I'm concerned so I thought pumpkin cookies would be super cute to show our appreciation.

I also packaged up some cookies and took them to the post office! I am a frequent visitor to our local post office and so from time to time I like to say thank you in the form of sweets! They are always so excited and appreciative when I bring them in some cake pops or cookies.

So on this day let's all remember to "slow down" (I know this is extremely hard for me) and spend time with family and remember to say "thanks" and be appreciate for all of the blessings in our life!

Happy Thanksgiving to you all!

Pumpkin Patch Cake

I having been dying to share this adorable 1st Birthday cake with you all! I absolutely love the idea of a "pumpkin patch" themed cake for a fall birthday. It can't get much cuter than this can it? This cake was so easy to make, as you can see the famous fall "candy pumpkins" are the star of the show! So no need to spend hours making your own fondant pumpkins, just grab a bag of these little candies and you are all set! I used brown fondant to create the fence around the sides of the cake and the sign. Using some green tinted buttercream and the Wilton tip # 233 I piped grass around the base of the cake and around the pumpkin clusters on the top.

Then I made one single cupcake for Finn to enjoy as his smash cake!

Not only is this cake perfect for a fall birthday, but it would be great to accompany your Thanksgiving Feast! You could change up the writing on the sign to say "Give Thanks" or "Happy Thanksgiving" and it would be perfect. You could even make a pumpkin flavored cake with a cream cheese frosting...yum wouldn't that be an amazing end to your turkey dinner. So if you are still looking for a festive fall dessert, give this cake a try and grab the kids to help you decorate. I guarantee they will love scattering the pumpkins all around.

Apple Pie Cupcakes

Happy Friday! If you are heading out this weekend to start buying all your food for Thanksgiving next week, check out this recipe and grab a few extra things, like apples, brown sugar, cinnamon and pie crust because you are going to want to give these Apple Pie cupcakes a try! They are the perfect fall dessert and would be such a cute addition to your turkey feast this year! They are a moist apple cinnamon cake with an apple pie filling hidden inside! Topped off with light and fluffy brown sugar cinnamon swiss meringue buttercream and garnished with a cinnamon sugar apple pie crust!

So If you had already planned to make an apple pie for Thanksgiving this year, why not turn that pie into cupcakes and give this recipe a go! I promise you they taste exactly like apple pie and you won't disappointed!

Head on over to Half Baked to get the full recipe and step-by-step details and photos for how to make these adorable mini cakes that your family is sure to gobble right up!

Cake Inspired Birthday Cookies

Today's post is dedicated to my amazing sister Emily! It's her birthday today and I wanted to make her some "cake inspired" cookies to show her how much I love and appreciate her! This past year she became an aunt or "Auntie Em" as we now call her to our little boy Sam! Let's just say we are so blessed to have her in our lives and Sam is one lucky little boy to have her as an aunt! I am not kidding when I say probably about 90% of his wardrobe for the first almost 8 months of his life has been bought for him by her! Emily is constantly sending me text messages during her lunch break of new outfits she has bought for Sam! And if she comes across one that has something to do with "aunt" on the front, well of course she is putting it in her shopping cart! So today, although we are 725 miles apart, I wanted to send her some birthday love in the form of cookies! Lucky for her, my mom (our mom) is down here visiting us right now and flying home today to hand deliver these special cookies!

The theme for these cookies came to me from our numerous conversations we have had about cakes we come across online from other bloggers that we absolutely love and that she always tells me, "you should try this sometime"! The common themes for most cakes that grab our attention these days consist of ruffles, ombre, or sprinkles! So what better way to celebrate the birthday girl than with some of her favorite cake trends replicated on cookies!

So first up is the "ruffle" cookie and "ombre"! If you are a long time follower of my blog you may remember my Valentine's ombre cupcakes here, with the recipe and tutorial posted on Half Baked here. Using a decorating tip #104 and varying shades of turquoise I created these ombre ruffle cookies! I used a crusting buttercream icing instead of royal icing for these cookies so that I could get the texture I wanted when creating the ruffles.

Every birthday needs sprinkles am I right? Rainbow non pareils are my absolute favorite! I love the crunch you get when you bite into the cookie! I think my sister is pretty fond of rainbow sprinkles too. Afterall, here is what she requested for her birthday two years ago! Today she is celebrating the big "29"! Enjoy the last year in your 20s Emily!

And finally another "ombre" cookie using a technique I have been dying to try ever since spotting these cookies on The Sweet Adventures of Sugarbelle. All you need is a can of Wilton Color Mist and a piece of paper to spray the cookies in varying shades! Let's just say this took a little trial and error at first to get a feel for the spray can, but I finally got the technique down! Still need more practice though! Step-by-step photos are over on The Sweet Adventures of Sugarbelle so check it out!

I think these cake inspired birthday cookies turned out pretty cute and I can't wait for her to see them in person! I have also already taste tested them, and they are pretty yummy!

Happy Birthday Auntie Em! Hope you have a great day and enjoy your cookies! We will see you next month for Christmas! Sam can't wait to give his auntie a big hug and kiss!

The Lorax - 1st Birthday

I recently got to work on a super fun 1st birthday cake for my friend Jamie's little boy Jonah! The theme was The Lorax. I have not read the book or seen the movie, but Jamie pointed me in the right direction with what she was looking for! She wanted a smash cake for Jonah decorated in orange with yellow polka dots and then a larger cake covered in trufulla trees for the guests to enjoy! Each layer of the larger cake was dyed a different color...orange, yellow and green and then frosted in blue buttercream. Fondant truffula trees lined the outside of the cake. For a little something special, I used black and white striped paper straws to resemble the trunks of the truffula trees and then added puffs of cotton candy on top. I really love how both of these cakes came together and the fun color palette I got to work with. It was so much fun to see little Jonah dig into his smash cake! He was a little hesitant at first, but once his fingers hit the icing, it was all over and orange buttercream was everywhere! Hope you enjoy these pictures of Jonah's birthday cakes.

Halloween Desserts

Halloween Desserts...need some ideas before Halloween on Wednesday, here's a peek at some cookies, cake pops, cupcakes and brownies I recently created for a party last weekend! I snapped a few behind the scenes shots as I was decorating the cookies and tombstones for the brownie graveyards! IHope you enjoy these Halloween treats!

I love how these brownie graveyards turned out! Thanks to my new Chicago Metallic Slice Solutions Brownie Pan, I was able to create uniform size brownies and didn't even have to cut them...the pan did all the work! Do you have one of these pans? If not I highly suggest getting one...add it to your Christmas list! Decorated with black fondant tombstones, a candy pumpkin and some green buttercream grass to complete the look.

Red Velvet Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting

Strawberry Cupcakes with Strawberry Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting

Before I took the desserts to the customer, I set up a mini display in my back yard on the new Farm table my husband built for me! I came across this amazingly beautiful DIY Farm Table on the blog Our Vintage Home Love and immediately fell in love and said I need one of these for my dining room! I showed my husband the blog post with the instructions, gathered the list of supplies we needed and off to Lowe's we went. Within a few hours he had made this table! Lucky for us we had an old desk in our shed that we were able to use as the base, it just had to be painted white. So we bought the pine boards, wood stain and sanding paper for the top and probably spent less than $50 on this entire project! If you have never checked out Our Vintage Home Love before, it is an amazing site with a great story behind it and some awesome DIY inspiration! I think I seriously sat and clinked on every tab and just kept browsing and browsing for a few hours once I discovered their site! So know that you know a little about our table, let's get back to the sweet stuff!

Here's a few more pictures of all the finished Halloween treats! Hope you all have a fabulous Halloween!

Candy Bar Cake

Halloween is only a few days away...have you been stocking up on all your candy for the trick-or-treaters? I must admit I haven't gone to the store to load up, but will definitely be making a trip this weekend to pick up some Butterfingers, M&M's, Reese's Cups and my all time favorite Snicker's! It has been way too long since I sank my teeth into the chocolate, caramel and nutty goodness of a Snicker's bar. Just thinking about grabbing a bag of this candy took me back to a few months ago when I made this Candy Bar Cake from the March, Chocolate Issue of Food Network Magazine. This is one of my favorite magazines to get in the mail each month because every recipe, especially the desserts always look amazing!

So when I saw the CHOCOLATE issue I was in heaven. While doing a quick flip through the pages I stumbled upon this cake and immediately I thought of a gigantic Snicker's Bar! So I gave the recipe a try and took it to a cookout with some friends and it was a huge hit! The best part about this recipe...there is NO BAKING involved. That's right, the base of the cake is pound cake! Now don't get me wrong I absolutely love to bake, but when you are in a pinch and need a quick, easy and delicious dessert you can't go wrong with this cake. It's all about combining a few key ingredients and layering them one on top of the other.

The base of the cake is pound cake, with a layer of chocolate buttercream, a layer of dulce de leche and salted peanuts and then the entire thing is coated in chocolate! YUM! So if you are looking to create a treat to impress your Halloween Party quests this year, you can't go wrong with this Candy Bar Cake! Check out the recipe here!